Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There was a lot in that. I do not say this pejoratively, because it is the right of individuals and communities to object, but I do believe that objections play a role in slowing down the delivery of projects. How do I reconcile that with the Deputy's correctly made point that more projects get granted planning permission than do not? The issue is that while it may be true in terms of the number of individual projects, in my experience the projects that are capable of delivering more homes do get slowed down by people exercising their democratic right.

The second factor that plays a role is the nature of the objections that are made. Ten years ago, it used to be the case that the highest form of objection was to go to An Bord Pleanála but now it is to go to judicial review. That absolutely has an effect on the speed and time for projects being delivered. Again, so that my comments are not misinterpreted I must emphasise that I am not criticising anybody for exercising their right. While planning applications for individual homes may well be granted in large numbers, I come back to my own experience that individual applications for multiple dwellings or multiple homes do move forward at a far slower pace, in particular now because of the number that end up in judicial review. I would have to look at the paper the Deputy referred to. I do not have that publication in front of me. I would simply say that it is a factor as opposed to the factor in it all. The Deputy has highlighted a number of other issues that slow things down. The Deputy is right in highlighting them.

The Deputy suggested setting up a centralised body to do this work. To be frank I cannot think of anything that would slow us down more as a State body than trying to do that. If we were to begin the process now of taking off every local authority in the country the work they do in housing and aggregate it into a single State body we would be at it for years. I just look at Irish Water as a classic example of it. I passionately believe that establishing Irish Water was the right thing to do but it is only in the last year or so that we have concluded on lots of issues relating to the staff that now work at Irish Water who had worked for local authorities. If at this point in our housing challenge the answer was that we were to come up with a new State body to do it, my genuine fear is that it would only slow us down and not speed us up.